www.serellan.com - Designing video games, the internets, and other stuff...

August 14, 2007

A new blog, a new website, and now a new job…

On October 1st, 2002, I started work at Red
Storm. It’s been an awesome ride,
starting as an Assistant Designer and working my way up to Creative Director,
and shipping I can’t remember how many Ghost Recon games (I think it is 7 now,
depending on how you count SKU’s). However, all things must come to an end, and I’ve decided to move away
from the heat and humidity of North Carolina to the rain and snow of
Washington. To that end, I’ve accepted a Design Lead
position at Bungie, where I’ll be working on something a bit different than
Ghost Recon. August 10th was
my last day as a Sr Designer/Creative Director at RSE and Ubisoft.

It dawned on me on my last day at RSE that I had worked
there longer than any one place in my adult life, even longer than I was in the
Marines. Surreal to be moving on to
somewhere different, but I am excited about the chance to face new challenges
as a Designer.

So now I’m just getting ready to move, packing, sorting out
movers, scouting for new houses in the area (and having fun checking housing
prices in Seattle!). I like the area
though, it’s much closer to Alaska than NC is, and I’m looking forward to getting
some camping done (I could never bring myself to camp in NC, either to hot or
too freaked out by ticks and lyme disease…there should be a law that anything
that can kill you should be big enough to shoot).

To all my friends at Red Storm and Ubisoft, it’s been great
working with you, keep making kick ass games!

Comments

I have to say thank you for the service to the Ghost Recon Universe. You will be missed from those games and hope you the best at Bungie. I will continue to love play your games online for a long time and for that I am debited to you. I just can't wait to see what is next for this great Designer!!

I can't tell you how much Rainbox Six, Rogue Spear and Ghost Recon have inspired me to want to work in this industry. From the intense single player moments where the slightest noise in my house would make me jump out of my chair, to the crazy clan matches we were into.

I really enjoyed chatting with you in Paris last year at the GRAW 2 press gathering and I look forward to speaking to you again in the future. I'm sure whatever it is you'll be working on it will be something special.

Hey man. Why move to Washington permanently? Where do you really want to live? What game is it that you really want to make? Why don't you just start designing it and put out notice to companies/publishers to see which ones want it. Then you can live where you want (even if you have to make some remote trips for a few months now and then over the course of development).

You are the star, man. Not Game Company X. A game company can't design a game - only a game designer can. All a game company can do is have an office, own stuff and write paychecks. They need you far more than you need them. Remember that joke Richard Garriott (or whomever) told about EA buying his company five or six times? Every time they bought it, the core staff would leave it and go back to Garriot where they'd form a new one that EA would then buy. And it happened over and over because EA doesn't realize you can't own talent.

Take control of your destiny. You could be working with a different company every year, producing whatever game design strikes you next, because you have the power. Not them.

Get an agent.

Yes, I know this is unconventional. So? Everything has to change. It changed in the movie business. At one time the stars were employees of the studios. Then, slowly, guys like Mike Ovitz realized it was the stars who had the power - not the studios.

It dawned on me on my last day at RSE that I had worked there longer than any one place in my adult life, even longer than I was in the Marines. Surreal to be moving on to somewhere different, but I am excited about the chance to face new challenges as a Designer.

I like the area though, it’s much closer to Alaska than NC is, and I’m looking forward to getting some camping done (I could never bring myself to camp in NC, either to hot or too freaked out by ticks and lyme disease…there should be a law that anything that can kill you should be big enough to shoot).

So now I’m just getting ready to move, packing, sorting out movers, scouting for new houses in the area (and having fun checking housing prices in Seattle!). I like the area though, it’s much closer to Alaska than NC is, and I’m looking forward to getting some camping done (I could never bring myself to camp in NC, either to hot or too freaked out by ticks and lyme disease…there should be a law that anything that can kill you should be big enough to shoot).

It dawned on me on my last day at RSE that I had worked there longer than any one place in my adult life, even longer than I was in the Marines. Surreal to be moving on to somewhere different, but I am excited about the chance to face new challenges as a Designer.